US-based Westinghouse Electric Company and Spain’s Enusa have signed the Westinghouse & Enusa Technology Cooperation Agreement (WETCA) extending the existing licence agreement for 10 years. They also signed a contract under which Enusa will fabricate VVER-440 fuel assemblies for Fortum’s Loviisa NPP in Finland for delivery later this year. This is a continuation of the VVER-440 fuel cooperation announced in September 2022.
Mariano Moreno, President of Enusa, underlined the strategic nature of this collaboration, pointing out that “over these 50 years, many professionals from both companies have worked side by side, sharing knowledge, experiences and values. It is their effort and dedication that has strengthened this alliance and made it an example of industrial cooperation at an international level.”
In September 2022, Westinghouse and Enusa announced intention to collaborate on VVER-440 fuel fabrication with the aim of delivering a Western alternative to Russian fuel in the European market where VVER-440s currently use fuel supplied by Rosatom’s TVEL.
In January 2023 Spain’s Enusa Industrias Avanzadas and Westinghouse Electric Sweden AB formalised a cooperation agreement for manufacture of VVER-440 fuel. The agreement, which entered into force on 1 December 2022, was for exclusive collaboration in the manufacture of VVER-440 fuel for countries operating this type of reactor. Enusa launched all the necessary activities to reinstall a production line for this product at its Juzbado factory. Westinghouse and Enusa agreed to manufacture the fuel using their factories at Västerås, in Sweden, and Juzbado (Salamanca), in Spain, as supply contracts were signed.
Westinghouse and Enusa have partnered since 1974 under a Pressurised-Water Reactor (PWR) fuel technology transfer agreement supporting plants in Spain, Belgium, and France among others. In 1999, British Nuclear Fuels Ltd (BNFL) bought Westinghouse’s commercial nuclear power businesses. Between 2001 and 2007, BNFL/Westinghouse delivered a total of 741 VVER-440 fuel assemblies to Fortum’s Loviisa NPP, which were manufactured by Enusa in Spain.
The fuel assembly design – NOVA E-3 (fixed assembly) and NOVCA (follower) – was developed in 1996-98 in a programme involving BNFL (UK), IVO (Finland) and PAKS (Hungary). The programme included extensive testing and qualification of the new design. In 1998, the manufacturing of five Lead Test Assemblies at Springfields in the UK was completed and the fuel was delivered for Loviisa unit 2.
These designs were integrated into the Westinghouse fuel product portfolio, and all the intellectual property for the VVER-440 fuel was transferred from BNFL to Westinghouse in 2005-2006 when Westinghouse was purchased by Toshiba. However, the Loviisa fuel contract was not renewed and Westinghouse withdrew from the market in 2008, and closed down the supply chain and development of the VVER-440 design.
In 2014 reactivation of the VVER-440 market was reconsidered and Westinghouse, in a consortium comprising nine organisations, applied for a Euratom funded programme for diversification of the VVER fuel market in Europe. It was granted €2 million in 2015 to run the European Supply of Safe Nuclear Fuel (ESSANUF) HORIZON 2020 project. Both Enusa and Westinghouse worked together on the ESSANUF project in 2015-2017.
In the 1990s, Enusa and Westinghouse partnered in delivering pressurised water reactor fuel to European customers outside of Spain including in Belgium and France. Since the first fuel delivery to the Spain’s Ascó NPP in 1985, Enusa’s facility in Juzbado has provided more than 7,300 tonnes of PWR fuel to its customers.
